369 6.07 – Redemption – The Wheel Of Time

+— Author’s note —-+

Edited by Psycho S.

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° Dai An lost track of time. How many hours, days, weeks, or years have passed? She didn’t know.

° Her heart, hard as stone, after having shrunk to dodge anguish, finally softened. It was swelling and dissolving, slowly but unavoidably... She eventually indulged herself in self-pity.

° At times she wanted to disappear-to truly disappear-to dissolve into sea foam upon the ocean waves and vanish from the world.

historical

° When she thought she was about to cry again, the warden timely strode inside her cage to continue ‘filling’ up the cauldron below with her blood. Her internal bleeding was in no way heavy enough to push itself through her skin. It would take decades, no, centuries until she would get her salvation.

° Dai An wanted to throw in a white towel and shut down. Death wasn’t pleasant but it was better than being left alive with horrible memories and pain. She had no more goals to accomplish. She already got her enlightenment.

° When she thought she had herself under control, this unshakable curse made her unable to give up on herself no matter what. As red droplets dripped down her cheeks, she bit her tongue and spit a mouthful of blood into the bottomless pit below her feet in an attempt to fill the cauldron faster.

.....

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° A visitor came... let’s say yesterday. Dai An thought he was important because of the way her tormentor treated him with respect.

° He walked around, made a good display of civility, and asked some prisoners what foods they were craving before they would be granted a chance to reincarnate. She recognised a few among the prisoners that were just granted ‘freedom’ earlier.

° If a Demon King could fall in love with a human girl, why couldn’t this demon with a higher rank too? Would anyone be interested in a hideous mute criminal with human roots, like her? Though a bit disfigured, she would be a very obedient and fun companion once they took off her restraints. Low maintenance, no foods or drinks required.

° Instead of food, Dai An was dying for a bath, to clean her wounds and start over. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, so what could she do? Were there no other ways to convey her thoughts? Of course, there were.

° If the sir visitor thought that prolonging her sentence would break her more, then... let him think so. She died as a cult leader with very devoted followers, some of them were granted freedom just a while ago, and so he just lost an opportunity to become a new Demon King.

° And that was how, since yesterday, she had been playing with the sensations of having honey soap in her mouth through the long days. Oh, those sweet bubbles. Mentally, she threw a bucket of water over her body about a thousand times because, from the time she appeared here, she received no bath.

° This place was cold, so cold, and despite there being people, they had almost no beating heart. Dai An threw a glimpse at the prisoners that liked to gather around her cage to gnaw at the shield she painstakingly built up against them.

° They were in a state worse than that of a corpse, for they have decayed into unrecognised shapes as every part of their bodies was tortured into mush.

° She was desperate to create something, anything, in an environment where everything was being destroyed. Black humour made her shield thicker and more protective.

° Reincarnation. She didn’t like the idea of having her memories wiped out, everything she learned would go to naught. She would stay behind and cultivate. Since her childhood, she never gave up on becoming a ghost.

° If the cauldron would ever fill up, then her reincarnation better be less ambitious, sharp, and sensitive, for she needed an excuse to be sluggish with her mind and be happier.

· · ———- · ???· ———- · ·

These prisons were neglected from the beginning of time, which could be seen by how not a single Demon King found out about Dai An’s existence. Until now.

“Protect the Holy Maiden!”

“Catch the Intruders!”

For such a large prison, there were not many caged individuals. If there were, they would often turn into demonic beasts.

But that was not her case.

This caged maiden was a symbol of patience and tolerance. Though she was mute, it didn’t stop her supporters from seeing her vision. If the higher-ups realized how important she was to them, she would be seized and everyone would get into trouble. They were already at their lowest low. Could it get any worse for them? They decided to hide and safeguard her spirit – the risk and sense of control over their fate was worth it.

When negative chaos reigned, fear aroused, and violence flared, they would seek salvation in her religion, the kind that felt free and safe. While they confronted fear, she was the one from whom they sought guidance.

“Catch the Intruders!”

“Protect the Holy Maiden!”

Kuro thought about warning his Host’s hubby about the dangers lurking in the underworld as a formality. Not that something could ever happen to that man who cultivated his strength underneath most people’s radar. Constantly suppressing his son’s power was only a small part of his self-made harsh regime.

Xuan Mu neither moved nor spoke, looking around the vast prison that seemed to have no end. The gore, the sick smell of death coated his lungs and twisted his innards. The heavy mist of dirty blood clung to his skin so thick it came to form a cold sheen, smudging and encrusting him with the filth of the place. He could have sworn that he felt a familiar aura, like a subtle ocean breeze of his wife’s spirit. There was no way for her to reside here, was there?

He suddenly teleported before the largest mountain of corpses surrounded by a smaller group of prisoners. Someone was there, caged and wounded.

Fear carved an enormous hole in his stomach when he uncovered a metal-framed cage like that used for torture. The sight made his heart shrink until it was hard as a rock, weighing more than his creaking skeleton.

Her eyes were blindfolded, her wrists and mouth tightly bound. Her back was cut open, skin removed, exposing the ribs. Her ribcage was hacked from the back, her lungs were pulled out, resembling a broken pair of ‘wings’.

Her appearance was beyond recognisable, but he could still tell who she was. A spirit that didn’t belong to Bing Shi, but... Dai An?

A lone speck of grey and blue grew precariously amid her broken rib cage. Daisy-like in appearance, it glowed delicately against the black flesh, creating a perfect match to the tiny confetti flecks of blue in his eyes. Her newly opened petals, swept outward like a silk chain, enticing him with a chemical high to give her what she wanted.

He immediately ordered Kuro to hide his wife’s dead soul and accumulated spirit the moment they were being absorbed.

The prisoners and supervisors who lost themselves in Xuan Mu’s unexpectedly familiar eyes quickly recollected and got into a protective formation around the entity they believed to be sacred, “Don’t allow anyone to get near her!”

Covering his eyes, Xuan Mu felt the level of his sanity surpassing his lowest low. He couldn’t continue like this forever. This form of torture didn’t decapitate him or cut him into pieces, but it left him psychologically shattered.

Xuan Mu had to make a choice. Either he let this powerful entity which resided within this more than dreadful body to devour Bing Shi’s accumulated spirit and her dead soul, or wait, and wait...and wait until Bing Shi ascended to godhood. He knew that the latter was unlikely to happen with his wife’s tendencies to slag during her training. But there was one thing he was sure of: when it came to her character, it would stay consistent in her core. No matter what lifetime, what body, nor what memories one threw at her.

+– ANTIPIRACY NOTE–+

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